


We All Need Heroes (Don't We?)

by proudlyyours



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: 10 percent worries about failing as a mom, 90 percent cute and fluffy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Single moms au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-06 23:54:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11046972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/proudlyyours/pseuds/proudlyyours
Summary: Raising a baby alone is not as easy as Lexa thought it would be, especially not one as fussy as her son, Charlie. Completely at a loss for what to do, she goes to a single moms' group where she meets her saviour, Clarke, the mom of baby Mia. Clarke gives Lexa some much needed hope and she finally begins to believe that things will get better. The two of them come to lean on each other with time but, when their feelings deepen, will they be able to risk such an important friendship and embark on becoming more?





	We All Need Heroes (Don't We?)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, and welcome to another one of my aus! I'm still working on my bar au, my increasingly more angsty, lankier than I expected teenager of a fic, but this story is my side project. Kind of my baby, if you will. All soft and squishy and always making me smile. It helps me get through tough times in the other story so I hope it brings some of that positivity to you too. 
> 
> I'd love to hear your thoughts, thank you so much for reading!

Lexa Woods has never been bad at anything. Sure, she’s not amazing at everything either, no one could boast such a feat, but she’s always been at least passably good at everything she’s tried. 

(Her family have been forbidden to mention the home economics disaster of tenth grade – if no one talks about it, it never happened.) 

Lexa doesn’t do failure, it’s absolutely not an option, and so she has always stuck to her strengths of which there are many. The merely satisfactory skills she discovered over the years have been far surpassed by these strengths and, as such, she’s become very used to being incredibly good at almost everything. She was always top of her class at school, she led the student council, was the soccer captain, participated in the big sister programme, and tutored a few of the less able students. She graduated high school as the valedictorian, was the top graduate at Harvard Law in her year, and secured herself an amazing internship at one of the biggest law firms in the United States. It's quite the intimidating list of accomplishments and yet Lexa is always striving for more, not really sure who she is without her success.

Twenty-nine years of excellence really hasn’t helped to prepare her for the harsh reality of failure. It’s an awful feeling when everything she built to hold herself up is reduced to dust around her.

It’s a bleak morning, one following a night of almost no sleep much like every night Lexa’s been confronted with for the last few months. The face of her failure is contorted in frustration, pink with exertion, screams threatening to snap her very last thread of confidence in herself. She’s sitting cross-legged on the floor in a strange room, one she’d been encouraged into by her older sister who told her she needed to find people like her, that it wasn’t healthy to spend all of her time alone. Of course she pointed out that she wasn’t alone, she was never alone, and Anya had said maybe that was her problem.

So that’s how she’s ended up sitting in that room, part of a currently broken circle. A few of the women are giving her sympathetic glances, though one gives her a rather harsh glare that would have once had Lexa bristling and on the offensive. But she’s tired, exhausted in fact, and she can totally understand where the woman is coming from. If she’d been her, she probably would be giving herself the same look. 

She sighs and keeps her gaze away from the other women. Instead she focuses on her son, the squalling infant writhing in his discomfort on his blanket in front of her. But looking at him hurts, it makes her feel useless, and most of all it makes her feel utterly stupid that she had believed that motherhood was going to be another thing she could put on her never ending list of accomplishments.

How hard could being a mom really be, she had naively thought two years ago when she had decided to start trying to have a baby. She was patient, she loved structure, she could be soft but also stern when it was needed, all qualities she decided a good parent should have. So that meant she’d be a good parent, right?

Wrong.

Charlie Woods is three months old and, so far, he’s spent most of his life crying. Crying because she’s failing him.

She reaches out and places a hand on his stomach, rubs at it, tries to draw his attention to her. She has no idea what he wants. She fed him, changed him, he’d fallen asleep briefly on the drive over so he’d definitely had at least a little sleep in between crying jags. She’d cuddled him, rocked him, burped him, tried to feed him again but nothing will stop this boy. He just keeps on crying.

She brushes at his sparse, dark hair and his little lip trembles as his cries quiet for a second. Glassy, tear-filled eyes stare up at her and she holds her breath in hope, maybe he’s finally all cried-out, but then he starts wailing again. She takes his bear out of her bag and tries waving it above his head, tries to distract him from his woes, and save his poor little throat that must surely be hurting by now. Nothing.

Despondent, she drops the bear back into her bag and curls her hands into her lap, bows her head and sighs. It’s official, Lexa is the world’s worst mother. But this isn’t like finding something she’s not great at in other parts of her life, she can’t just avoid it. She can’t force people not to mention it like she’d done when she was fifteen. She’s an adult now and Charlie is her kid. She’s a _mom._ She planned this little boy, made him, and fit him into her life. He’s hers and they’re just going to have to make this work. She’s not sure how but one day he has to stop crying, right? He won’t still be crying in a few years’ time. That’s not possible.

Is it?

Lexa thought she’d really enjoy having a baby but in reality she just wishes he’d grow up and learn to talk so she can reason with him, so she can finally understand what she’s doing wrong. What she wouldn’t give for an answer to that question.

“Wow, that kid’s got a set of lungs on him!”

Lexa’s gaze snaps up to follow the voice that has interrupted her rapid descent into despair. A halo blooms behind a head of tousled blonde hair and Lexa’s grateful when the owner of the voice crouches down beside her, moving out of the harsh glare of the artificial lighting. The first thing that comes into focus is a set of bright blue eyes, the second a gentle smile that somehow outshines those eyes.

Lexa nods in agreement, she’s too tired to do anything else.

“May I?” the woman asks, nodding her head towards Charlie whose lament is still sounding resolutely. 

Lexa watches the way the woman’s mouth forms the words, her head abuzz with the static of her son’s cries, and nods again. Before she can process what’s happening, something warm and squishy is shoved into her arms.

“Here,” the woman says and Lexa reflexively grabs what she is offered. 

Her senses crack back into focus with the weight in her lap and she looks down to find blue eyes watching her once more. But the woman is leaning forward and picking up Charlie, these eyes are different eyes. Smaller and perhaps a little darker. Right, a baby, of course, the woman handed her a baby. This is the unimaginatively-named ‘single moms of babies and toddlers’ group after all. 

A pudgy hand reaches up towards Lexa’s face, swiping uncoordinatedly it. Lexa moves her head back a little, alarmed at first, and then finds herself watching with interest as the tiny human in her arms attempts the movement again. On the third endeavour, Lexa realises the baby is trying to grab her glasses. 

Despite everything, Lexa smiles. It feels foreign but not unpleasant.

The world slowly comes back into focus, her mind roots itself into reality, and everything feels a little softer with the smile now on her lips. She takes in the little blue dress the baby is wearing, the white shirt underneath with matching white tights, and the soft shoes on currently useless feet. The girl has the tiniest blonde curls forming on her head, just long enough to make her hair look a slightly uneven.

‘Cute’ is the word that Lexa’s mind manages to conjure.

The delicate hand continues to reach for Lexa’s glasses, causing her to let out something that sounds strangely like a giggle. She takes the hand before tiny fingers can leave smudges on the lens. Their eyes lock as the baby tries to figure her out and after a pause her lips twitch.

Lexa’s heart sinks. 

So it’s true, she’s cursed. It’s not just Charlie – babies hate her. This poor kid is about to start hollering and Lexa will be a pariah in the mom-world. She’s about to concede defeat and accept her fate but then the most miraculous thing happens – the little girl smiles. She actually _smiles._ At Lexa! 

Lexa’s own smile miraculously reappears and that only spurs the baby on, her mouth stretching wider, showing off beautiful, toothless gums. The tension in Lexa’s muscles loosens and she sinks in relief.

“What do you know, she likes you!” a voice exclaims.

Not even a minute has elapsed and yet Lexa's managed to forget that there are other people around - honestly she’s such a scatter-brain these days - and she looks up to see the woman from before sat next to her holding Charlie in her arms.

“I… I guess she does,” Lexa says, still kind of in awe. 

They stare at each other for a moment, both smiling softly, and Lexa tightens her hold on the little girl still sat in her lap. She’s about to ask the woman her name, it’s kind of weird doing a baby swap with a stranger and the least she can do is find out what she’s called, but she’s distracted when the woman looks down and begins humming to Charlie. She rocks him gently, smiling down at him all the while. 

Lexa’s so wrapped up in the beautiful melody the woman is creating with what are surely angel-blessed vocal cords that it takes her while to realise what a true miracle-worker she is. The room has grown quiet; Charlie has stopped crying. 

Her jaw drops as she watches the way Charlie regards the stranger, eyes wide and mouth slightly open, as he stares up at the unfamiliar face. Lexa read once that, from very young, babies have been found to have a preference for human faces over other stimuli but somehow it seems as if the novelty of this woman has him transfixed. He never looks at her like that. Perhaps he’s simply bored with looking up at the same face all the time. 

(That’s the least devastating explanation for his distress but Lexa doesn’t want to think about that right now.)

She should probably be annoyed that a complete stranger has managed to calm her son so easily but she doesn’t have it in her. As Lexa watches the woman stroke Charlie’s hair, still humming the pretty tune, she’s overwhelmed with gratitude and, frankly, she feels like she’s about to burst into tears. All of those nights she stayed up cramming for her exams in college hadn’t even come close to showing her what true sleep deprivation feels like. These days she’s ready to cry at a simple thing like a wrinkle in her once immaculate shirts. She ends up sobbing ridiculously at least once a day for many reasons: despair, frustration, and utter exhaustion being the main ones. She’s not cried with relief yet but she’s pretty sure she’s about to because this is the first time she’s experienced any at all. 

“How’re you doing that?” Lexa says, blinking over at her saviour. She’s trying with all of her might not to let the tears fall, to hold it together and not beg this woman to never leave her alone again.

“Doing what?” The woman keeps her gaze on Charlie, the lines of her face soft and beautiful in her ease and the obvious adoration she has for the tiny life in her arms.

“You made him stop crying.”

Blue eyes flick up to Lexa and that soothing smile turns down a few notches. Two lines draw themselves between the woman’s eyebrows but even with the way her glow has dimmed she’s definitely still more angel than human. Lexa’s never been a believer in the supernatural but she’s almost ready to throw everything she’d come to accept as true out of the window and fall at this woman’s feet.

(It’s alright, she knows she’s losing it.)

“He cries a lot?” the angel – woman, Lexa needs to get her head out of the clouds – asks.

Lexa can’t help herself, she scoffs. Or she tries to, anyway. What actually comes out is more of a sob and that worried frown deepens. “A lot is an understatement.”

“Oh, are you a fussy one, little guy?” The woman’s eyes go back to Charlie again, the lines around them smoothing out, and the change in attention makes Lexa remember the baby in her lap. Apparently she’s been holding onto her hand this whole time but the baby clearly lost interest at some point and is gazing around the room now instead, seemingly content sitting there with one of Lexa’s arms anchoring her. 

“He cries _all the time_ ,” Lexa says quietly, wishing that her son could be as content as this little girl. Her voice threatens to crack with the hopelessness she feels and her cheeks flush at the betrayal.

“Hey-” the woman meets her eyes again- “it’s okay, babies cry, it’s kinda their thing.”

Lexa nods, not trusting herself to speak. The last thing she needs to do is start bawling at her first ever group session. She’s not sure she’d be able to make herself go back if she were to embarrass herself like that.

“Honestly-” the woman’s hand reaches out and she rests it on Lexa’s knee sweetly- “he’ll grow out of it.” She gives a brief squeeze before pulling back. “I’m Clarke, by the way, and the gorgeous girl you’ve got there is my little nugget, Mia.”

“Clarke,” Lexa repeats, finding her voice again. Something in the way the word rolls off her tongue, the way her throat closes around the final sound, makes her feel a little better.

She pulls her lips back in what she hopes resembles a smile. The baby wriggles in her arms and she looks down at her. “And Mia, hi Mia.”

Mia looks up at her but carries on fidgeting, making it hard to hold onto her. Her face contorts with the effort but she’s not crying. Not yet, anyway.

“And you are?” the woman – Clarke – prompts and Lexa looks back over at her.

“Oh, right-” she shakes her head and gives an awkward laugh- “Lexa. My name is Lexa. And the abnormally quiet boy in your arms is Charlie.”

“Lexa and Charlie,” Clarke says, nodding and smiling that ever-so-comforting smile. “Well it’s nice to meet you both. It’s your first time here, huh?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“I mean, a little, yeah, but I’ve been coming here for a while now so I’d definitely have noticed you before had you been here.”

“You would?”

“Well yeah, it’s not a massive group.”

“Oh, right, of course.”

Mia interrupts them as she finally starts to whine in frustration at being held captive and Clarke’s attention turns to her daughter.

“I think she’s about to start crawling,” she tells Lexa, her eyes still on Mia.

“Oh wow, that’s a big milestone! How old is she?”

“Six months. Wait, you’ve got to see this, it’s so cute. Put her on the floor for a minute and watch what she does.”

Clarke gives Lexa an encouraging smile and she does as she’s told. Mia wobbles a little once she’s sat unsupported but she soon gets her bearings and heaves herself onto her hands and knees, facing away from both of the women. Something seems to catch her interest across the room and she rocks her weight forward from her legs to her arms and then back again, repeating the action over and over, her body moving back and forth as if she’s trying to build up enough momentum to propel herself forward. It’s quite adorable and Lexa’s smiling again.

“Cute, right?”

“Definitely.”

“So how old’s Charlie?”

“He’s just turned three months.”

“He seems so tiny to me after being used to Mia.”

“He is a little small for his age,” Lexa acknowledges. She knows she shouldn’t obsess over his development but she can’t help but constantly keep track of his progress – she’s always so worried about him. “But he’s doing everything at a normal rate, nothing atypical to speak of, not that I can tell, anyway. Well, apart from all of the crying, of course. But I’ve not managed to pinpoint a reason yet.”

(She may have but she’s not about to admit to a stranger that she’s pretty sure that the reason is her.)

“But that _is_ pretty normal though,” Clarke says, seemingly and thankfully unperturbed by Lexa’s odd fixation with her son’s development. “Some babies are just fussy.”

“I know-” Lexa nods- “but it makes me feel…” She trails off, not really knowing why she suddenly feels compelled to tell Clarke of her deep sense of failure. She probably doesn’t want to hear about it so she decides to change the subject. “So when does this group thing start? What do we do, exactly?”

“Well, we do a few activities with the kids but really it’s just a safe space for us single moms to meet up and talk about the things we experience bringing our kids up on our own, you know?”

Lexa bites at her lip, the chasm of vulnerability threatening to open up inside her again. She’s not used to this feeling. “I wasn’t sure about coming but my sister… She’s worried about me.”

Clarke gives a sympathetic smile.

“Well you can tell her that you’re in good hands. These women can be kind of intimidating at first but they’ve helped me a lot.” Clarke’s hand is on Lexa’s knee again, and the contact urges Lexa to look her in the eye, to take her seriously. “You might be raising Charlie alone but you’ve got us now, OK?”

Lexa’s oddly touched at the sincerity in Clarke’s expression and she can’t help but soften a little. If Clarke notices the tears in her eyes, she doesn’t acknowledge them.

“Thanks, Clarke.”

“No problem.”

“I can take Charlie back now,” Lexa tells her, holding out her arms. Clarke smiles and hands the heavy-lidded baby back to Lexa. She curls her arms around him, wishing all of the positivity she can muster upon her tiny son.

 _Let him find contentment, please,_ she prays to a god she’s never believed in.

“I get another cuddle later though, right?” Clarke asks and it almost seems like the answer to Lexa’s prayer. What Clarke said before finally sinks in – maybe she doesn’t have to do this alone.

She looks up, feeling somewhat calmer, and is surprised by the expression Clarke is wearing. It’s very fond when considering that she’s looking at a stranger.

“Oh you can hold him any time,” Lexa says, “you’re the only person that has proven to be remotely good at soothing him.”

“I’m glad to be of service.”

Clarke’s smiling and she grabs the still rocking Mia, brings her up to her face and kisses her cheek a few times, making the small girl giggle. It pulls at Lexa’s heart and suddenly, even though the meeting hasn’t actually begun yet, she’s very grateful that she came. She makes a mental note to buy Anya a bottle of wine on her way home to thank her. Perhaps this really could be good for her and for Charlie, too. It certainly can’t hurt. The way things were going before… But no, things will be okay, they have to be.

Clarke sits Mia in her lap, wrapping her arms around her torso and holding her close.

“We’re here for you, okay?”

Lexa lets that sincerity seep into her, feels the warmth flooding her system, and then she feels… Ah yes, there it is again. _Relief._

Finally.

 

*

 

Clarke is exhausted. 

She aches all the way down to her bones and her eyes are scratching with tiredness but she’s used to it. Used to the voice inside telling her to give up, used to the weight that tries to pull her through the floor as she walks up to the door of her apartment. It takes a moment of hesitation before she slips the key into the lock. She can already hear the hum of the TV through the wood and she knows what she’ll find once inside.

And yes, there they are. Her ex is laid out on the couch fast asleep and Mia is on her front on his chest, her head turned to the side so that Clarke can see that she, too, is sleeping soundly. The way her cheek is squished against her dad’s body makes her lips stick out in an adorable pout and some of the weight inside Clarke lifts. She puts her keys down on the worktop in the kitchen before stepping gently into the living area.

“Jack,” she says softly, reluctant to be too loud in case she wakes her daughter. She loves Mia more than anything in the whole universe but she’s so _tired_ and would rather not deal with a crying infant at two in the morning after a six hour shift. But apparently soft is too quiet when it comes to rousing Jack so instead she reaches out and picks Mia up, lays her against her own chest with a hand cradling her head and an arm under her bum. She bobs on the spot when Mia began to snuffle as she stirs. 

“Shh, shh, baby girl,” she coos, barely above a whisper, and Mia settles as Jack sits up. Evidently the loss of the weight on his chest finally woke him.

“Clarke, hey,” he says, his voice gruff and eyes squinting. Clarke is sure the two of them have been asleep for hours.

“Jack-” she says, tone disparaging despite her desire not to argue, not tonight. But she’s always been a fighter and habits are hard to break.

“I know what you’re going to say,” Jack says, stopping her before she can even begin. He gets to his feet, running his hand through his infuriatingly shaggy hair. “We just fell asleep.”

“I’m trying to stick to a routine with her,” she says despite the way her muscles scream at her to just let him leave so she can go to bed. “I need you to be with me on this.”

“Yeah I get that but she falls asleep so easily when we cuddle up,” Jack defends, eyebrows tilting in that way that makes him look like a wounded puppy. Clarke hadn’t been able to resist that once but things have changed. Now it just infuriates her.

“Of course she does, she loves the comfort and she loves you. But she has to learn to sleep on her own. Do you know that each time you do this she cries and cries when I put her to bed the next night?”

Jack shrugs, looking maybe a little guilty, but Clarke thinks that’s more for her benefit. She’s not convinced he really feels it.

“But isn’t it worth it when she gets good cuddles from her dad? It’s not like we get a chance to spend that much time with each other.”

Clarke channels some of her characteristic fight into stopping herself from rolling her eyes at his response.

“You can cuddle her any time, Jack, you don’t have to do it when she’s asleep. You’d know that if you spent any more time with her other than the two evenings a week that I’m at work. You could even, I don’t know, have her for a whole night? Have you even built that crib yet?”

“Uh, not exactly, and I would take her more but I have to work.”

“Not at the weekends you don’t.”

“You’d miss her if I took her for too long, though,” Jack insists and before Clarke can respond he cuts her off. “Don’t deny it.”

Clarke grits her teeth.

“Of course I’d miss her. But you’re her father and she loves you. I want what’s best for her.”

“So do I.”

“Does that mean you think two evenings a week with her dad while she sleeps is what’s best for her?” Clarke prods, struggling to keep her voice low. Mia’s breathing is heavy and warm in the crook of her neck and it’s the only thing stopping her from losing control. 

“We both know that you’re better for her than I am.”

“Then try harder!”

“I _am_ trying!”

Jack’s getting frustrated now and Clarke deflates. This isn’t what she wants. She wants him to be more than a babysitter to his own daughter but middle of the night arguments aren’t going to get him to be a better parent.

She walks away from him, nose angled towards Mia to breathe in her comforting scent, and to the front door. Once she’s opened it she leans against the kitchen worktop and gives him what she hopes is a disapproving but calm look. 

“Goodnight Jack, we’ll see you on Thursday.”

Jack sighs, looking incredibly hard done by, and though it makes Clarke’s nerves prickle with irritation he’s safe – the fight has left her. She can almost feel her soft sheets enveloping her she’s so close to being in bed. Jack sits on the couch to put his shoes on and when he stands, he runs his hand through his hair again. Clarke can’t believe she ever found that attractive, either.

“Bye, Clarke,” he says as he reaches her and he presses a kiss to the crown of his daughter’s head. “Night, Mia.”

And then he’s gone and Clarke can breathe properly again.

Mia goes down without a fuss and, despite everything, Clarke gets caught up watching her sleep for a little while, so soft and peaceful snoring lightly in her crib. Mia looks perfect in her yellow onesie all tucked up under her blanket, her arms extended out and bent in a right angle at the elbow so her hands reach towards the head of the crib. Her bottom lip has this cute little dent in it right in the middle that Clarke is forever fascinated by, although admittedly she’s fascinated by every part of this tiny life that she somehow created. Everything around them may be a bit of a mess but when she looks at Mia, she knows she has the best thing possible right here. 

Mia is worth it all.

It’s not long before she’s slipping beneath the covers of her bed in the next room and she sighs as she nestles into the softness of the pillow. Sleep comes quickly, blissfully, and all thoughts of Jack dissolve along with her consciousness. 

Strangely, the last thing that she thinks of as she falls asleep is the woman she met that morning, Lexa, and the utter hopelessness on her face. Clarke remembers that well from her recent past and she clings to her awareness for long enough to resolve to ease a little of Lexa’s burden. After all, she’d be nowhere without the people who had done that for her.

Clarke lets herself slip away and her dreams finally bring her peace.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments make my heart happy or you can come and tell me your feelings on [my tumblr](http://proudlyyours.tumblr.com/ask). I love to talk about my writing there and the tag for this fic can be found [here](http://proudlyyours.tumblr.com/tagged/clexa-sm-au). Thanks for popping by!


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